Legal Commentary

In my family law class yesterday, we began our discussion of the fundamental right to marry with the case of Loving v. Virginia, in which the Supreme Court struck down Virginia's anti miscegenation laws as unconstitutional.  As an Indian law scholar, one of the things that has always struck me about the case is the footnote regarding the Pocahontas exception.  Under Virginia's "one drop" rule, one drop of non-white blood was enough to remove a person from the "white" category.  The exception however was for the decedents of Pocahontas and John Rolfe. These descendants, presuming they had no other non-white heritage, could still claim to be white.

When I first encountered this exception I was surprised that there were enough decendents or people who wished to claim decent from Pocahontas for this to be an issue.  Pocahontas and Rolfe only had one child but according to to the Pocahontas websites, they have thousands of descendants (including two former first ladies, Edith Wilson and Nancy Reagan).  However, even if there are thousands of descendants I couldn't see why this fact justified the statute.  Even in the uber-race conscious Virginia of the pre civil rights period, it is unlikely that such decedants would have had problems "passing"  for white. Such descendants would have been no more than 1/16th Indian and the documentation of this fact would likely have been sparse.  Therefore, the purpose of this exception must not have been to protect such people from being "exposed," but rather to allow such people to brag about their Pocahontas connection. I can only conclulde that the statute was passed to  protect bragging rights. I am curious if this is a lone example or if anyone can think of any laws that have similar purpose.